In recent years, web-based social networking is exploding. Facebook, a social networking service company, announced in February 2012, that it had 845 million monthly active users and 425 million mobile users at the end of December 2011. On average in December 2011, there were 483 million daily active users on Facebook®. It was predicted that Facebook® would pass the milestone of 1 billion monthly active users some time in 2012.
In social networking platforms, such as Facebook®, LinkedIn®, MySpace®, etc, users may add colleagues, family members, and known friends to their contact lists. The users may send text messages, and make audio or video calls to other known users on the same platform. The social networking platforms allow their users to establish and/or maintain connections with members of a previously inhabited community. In addition, the platforms may be used to support relationships and keep users in contact, even when life changes, move them away from each other.
One problem with the existing social networking platforms is that they are mainly focused in reinforcing the old relationships and address little of many users' needs to meet people outside the social graph. For example, it's very difficult for a LinkedIn® or Facebook® user to reach out to new people that don't have any friends in common. On the other hand, the voyeuristic sites, such as Chatroulette® etc., don't seem to provide an effective solution. These sites introduce new people by randomly pairing users in video chat rooms. Although the random pairing eliminates the anxiety of meeting new people, the relationships created by such random parings seem to be too random and fleeting.
In consequence, the present inventors have recognized that there is value in providing network users a platform to build new relationships outside their social graphs by breaking down social boundaries between different social graphs. The present inventors have identified a need to provide a universal platform that is introducing people and bringing together people with common interests in particular topics, and/or having other commonalities.